Monday, January 28, 2008
a few more years..
.. before I am the same age as Homer Simpson, apparently.
In early seasons of the Simpsons, Homer was generally thought to be 36. You could figure this out by subtracting the birthdates briefly seen in places like shots of his drivers license, from the dates that the episodes generally aired.
Last night Bart categorically stated, in a non-Halloween (and therefore canonical) episode that Homer is "almost 40!".
Which means I have three more years than I thought I had.
Btw, anybody who thinks that last night's episode "That 90's Show" violates Simpsons continuity, go read up on the concept of Comic Book Time. The Simpsons has quite explicitly taken place in "comic book time" since at least the sixth season. And implicitly well before that. ("I Married Marge": Bart born in 1981. "Lisa's First Word": Lisa born in 1984. But in order to have been 10 and 8 in the Tracy Ullman shorts, they would have to have been born in 1977 and 1979).
(Note: that doesn't mean I liked last night's episode. Episodes that tie the Simpsons too strongly to one particular time period have annoyed me ever since "The Way We Was", because they run counter to the otherwise timeless appeal of a good cartoon; with only "Lisa's First Word" (an episode I loved so much that I forced my wife to re-watch it with me during the last week before our second child was born) being really good enough to rise above this handicap. Also, of all musical movements of the past 40 years, grunge was probably the least funny. The only person on earth who can make grunge music funny is Weird Al, which is why they had to have him in this episode to save it. (No, I didn't think "Homerpalooza" was all that gut-busting funny either, for all of the same reasons.. its one saving grace being Bart's line, "Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel"))
In early seasons of the Simpsons, Homer was generally thought to be 36. You could figure this out by subtracting the birthdates briefly seen in places like shots of his drivers license, from the dates that the episodes generally aired.
Last night Bart categorically stated, in a non-Halloween (and therefore canonical) episode that Homer is "almost 40!".
Which means I have three more years than I thought I had.
Btw, anybody who thinks that last night's episode "That 90's Show" violates Simpsons continuity, go read up on the concept of Comic Book Time. The Simpsons has quite explicitly taken place in "comic book time" since at least the sixth season. And implicitly well before that. ("I Married Marge": Bart born in 1981. "Lisa's First Word": Lisa born in 1984. But in order to have been 10 and 8 in the Tracy Ullman shorts, they would have to have been born in 1977 and 1979).
(Note: that doesn't mean I liked last night's episode. Episodes that tie the Simpsons too strongly to one particular time period have annoyed me ever since "The Way We Was", because they run counter to the otherwise timeless appeal of a good cartoon; with only "Lisa's First Word" (an episode I loved so much that I forced my wife to re-watch it with me during the last week before our second child was born) being really good enough to rise above this handicap. Also, of all musical movements of the past 40 years, grunge was probably the least funny. The only person on earth who can make grunge music funny is Weird Al, which is why they had to have him in this episode to save it. (No, I didn't think "Homerpalooza" was all that gut-busting funny either, for all of the same reasons.. its one saving grace being Bart's line, "Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel"))
